


Falling So Far

by wintersky (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Feelings, Fic Exchange, I'm sorry in advance if this causes feels, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Tumblr, sort of not really a casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wintersky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<em>Critical condition. Heart failing. Comatose. Life support.</em><br/>John is familiar with these terms; he himself has been the one to grimly say them to sobbing spouses, parents, lovers. But never has he been the one being told that someone he loves is dying.<em>"</em></p>
<p>This was written for the-shipyard on Tumblr for a Johnlock exchange. My prompt was "When John first realized he was in love with Sherlock," and so he did....but just a little too late.<br/> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling So Far

They are out on a chase, racing through London’s back alleys in pursuit of one of Moriarty’s agents. John is behind Sherlock, breathing heavily as he follows him blindly, ignoring the pain in his chest and shoulder. As he watches, Sherlock pulls a pistol from his overcoat and fires three shots in the criminal’s direction; they slice through the heavy night air like an axe through butter. The man disappears round a corner, unscathed; Sherlock curses under his breath. They are slowing now- John stumbles to a halt and catches his breath before taking out his own gun and jogging up to the taller man, questions in his eyes. Sherlock looks around warily, and the two men pace slowly in a circle, guns trained on the eerily silent, empty street around them. Watching. Waiting.

And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere: BANG. A loud rifle shot shatters the tense quiet, and John blinks instinctively at the accompanying flash- a mistake. He hears a sharp, pained yell that he knows immediately to be coming from Sherlock, and when he snaps open his eyes again, springing into a defensive posture, he sees- 

“NO!” 

He cannot control the cry that escapes his lips, and as he races over to the still, black-coated form sprawled on the pavement a short distance away, he feels the sensation of falling, falling; falling so far it seems he’ll never see light again. 

*** 

It is later now; John has lost track of the hours. A pedestrian heard the gunfire and called an ambulance and the police. John briefly remembers answering a few questions for the cops before they whisked Sherlock away in the ambulance, John following behind in the backseat of the police car. He sits here now, in an uncomfortable orange plastic chair in the emergency waiting room at St. Bart’s. He vaguely hears babies crying and people coughing, but it all seems very far away; nothing registers in his shock-ridden brain. He is numb. The only thing he sees is Sherlock’s prone form on the ground, an ominous dark puddle slowly spreading out from under his coat. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block it out. 

No. 

_No._

*** 

John falls asleep at some point, and wakes up later still when a tall male nurse in blue scrubs comes out of the ICU, shutting the door behind him with a click. John looks up eagerly, jolted awake by the noise, and the man consults his clipboard, looking around the waiting room.

“John Watson?”

John stands, suddenly fully alert. “Y-yes, that’s me,” he says, his voice strained from hours of worry and silence. 

“Come with me,” the nurse says, leading John down the hall to a hospital room, his eyes serious. They enter the room and shut the door; the click sounds ominously final to John. As his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees a physiologic monitor on the bed, an IV –both normal- and a crash cart- not a good sign; crash carts contain emergency resuscitation equipment, and John knows that they are placed in the rooms of patients in critical condition. The nurse sees him staring, and smiles sympathetically, saying “Just in case. Are you a doctor?”   
John nods, distracted now by the sight of Sherlock. He lies still in the hospital bed, breathing shallowly. His skin has a greyish tinge, and as John steps closer, he feels a twinge in his gut as he notices just how young and vulnerable the detective looks. Sherlock, normally so confident and vibrant, seems to be gone, and this weak shell of a man is all that remains. John is suddenly dizzy, and he stumbles back into the chair next to the bed.

“Is he…how bad is it?” he asks softly, his voice breaking. The nurse replies calmly but cautiously,

“The bullet entered slightly to the right of his heart. If had been just millimetres to the left, he would have been killed for sure. Your partner is very lucky, Dr. Watson...” 

John is frozen, no longer listening. 

_"He would have been killed for sure."_

He’s always known how dangerous Sherlock’s profession is- they have been in dangerous situations, injured, many times before. But this….this is truly serious. Sherlock nearly died. 

_And,_ says a nagging voice in the back of John’s head, _he still might. You never know._

The words echo in his head, and he is too shell-shocked to correct the nurse for calling Sherlock his partner. 

*** 

“Dr. Watson? John? Sir?” The nurse speaks softly, repeating John’s name until he snaps back to the present. “Oh! Yes. Sorry. You…you were saying?” he says, flustered. “I was just saying that you could spend the night here. We generally don’t allow visitors to the ICU overnight, but…” At this he smiles slightly, and John groans internally. The man is flirting, but if it means that he can stay with Sherlock, John will tolerate it (even though he’s definitely not his type, says a voice inside his head). He thanks him profusely and watches him leave, then gets as comfortable as he can in the chair and falls promptly asleep, completely spent. 

***

John wakes early the next morning from a troubled, dream-filled sleep- well, not so much dreams as that awful image of Sherlock bleeding on the pavement. He shudders, and then starts when he hears the door open. A pretty, young red-haired nurse enters the room, bringing with her a fresh IV drip. John immediately sits up and attempts to fix his hair, blushing as she smiles at him. 

“Good morning,” she says, with a slight Scottish accent. John hastily murmurs a reply, embarrassed.   
“How is he?” he asks briskly, his “doctor” mode kicking in. 

“His condition hasn’t improved, but hasn’t worsened either. His injuries are hugely severe, but his vitals are fairly stable," the nurse replies. She smiles again, and John manages a half-hearted one; this is good, he knows, better than he’d hoped, but he is still consumed with worry for the younger man. As the nurse- Aislin, John learns- changes the IV and checks Sherlock’s charts, she makes small talk with John, chattering and laughing and providing a welcome distraction. When she is done, right before she leaves, she turns to John and says “So, er, Dr. Watson…John….would you like to, um, get coffee when I’m done my shift? I get off at three…” 

John hesitates; normally he’d say yes in an instant, but today there is something holding him back. “I’m…I’m sorry, Aislin, but….” He gestures awkwardly, glancing at Sherlock. But Aislin seems to get the message; she nods understandingly and says “No, no, it’s perfectly fine; I understand. I’ll be back in a few hours to check on ‘im again, alright?” She winks and leaves. Too late, John realizes what she’s “understood”: she assumes that John and Sherlock are together. He sighs, as he always does when people do this, but for some reason the idea doesn’t seem like a bad one. He tries to push this away, but…it won’t go away. It’s firmly anchored itself inside his mind, and he sighs again and resolves to not think about it. 

_Come on, John, get a grip. It’s Sherlock we’re talking about,_ he thinks, irritated with himself.

_Yes- Sherlock,_ he thinks suddenly. 

_Sherlock. Sherlock._ The name pounds and pulses through his veins, becoming his heartbeat. His face fills John’s brain and his voice is all he can hear. He is everything, right now in this moment, and as John rises from his chair and goes to stand over his lifeless form, he realizes something that he has never dared to admit to himself. 

He is in love with Sherlock Holmes. 

His best friend. Sherlock, with his incredible mind and sharp tongue. Sherlock…Sherlock, with the beautiful ebony curls that John has thought about running his fingers through more times than he’ll admit; with those intense, piercing eyes that seem to see right through him. With the flawless porcelain skin and impeccable fashion sense; the graceful long violinist’s fingers, and the full, soft lips that John has always wanted to kiss. 

As the realization hits him and he stands motionless over the bed, the machines hooked up to the taller man’s body suddenly start to beep and flash. John stands up, stunned, and already he can hear nurses and doctors rushing down the hall to this room, shouting and bursting through the door. John melts into the background, watching silently as the room becomes a blur of activity. They work fast, and soon the machines return to normal, but as a doctor turns toward John his expression is grim. “Sir…I’d like to speak with you for a moment.” 

*** 

_Critical condition. Heart failing. Comatose. Life support._

John is familiar with these terms; he himself has been the one to grimly say them to sobbing spouses, parents, lovers. But never has he been the one being told that someone he loves is dying. 

Because he is. Sherlock Holmes is dying. They explain it to him; he’s gone into cardiac arrest and they’ve just barely been able to bring him back to semi-normal, but he’s slipped into a coma and a machine is breathing for him. His vital signs are barely even registering on the monitors.

Dying. 

All too soon, John’s best friend and the man he knows he loves is dying. _"This is not fair,"_ he wants to scream. _"I never even got to tell him."_

Later, they tell him that he can decide when to take Sherlock off life support; they’ve talked to Mycroft, being the only available relative, and he has given John permission to make this decision. They tell him that he said he “knows that John will know when.”   
John knows that waiting more than a few days is cruel, both to himself and to Sherlock- the awful truth is that, although he can’t feel any pain, waiting is not going to make a difference; he’s going to die- and so he decides on the following Wednesday, five days away. This is enough time to make funeral arrangements; to inform Molly and Lestrade and everyone at the Yard of the situation, and to say his goodbyes.

***

And so by the time Tuesday night rolls around, the funeral is booked for that Sunday, flowers have been ordered, his suit is at the drycleaners'…everything is sorted, except for one last thing. He has to kill his best friend. 

This is the worst possible way to think of it, he knows, but he feels like he deserves the pain this harsh statement brings. It is his fault, all of this; he never should have let Sherlock go after the agent when they both knew full well how dangerous it would be, he never should have fallen in love with him….he knows, too, that this is absurd, but can’t help blaming himself. 

All night he sits awake at Sherlock’s bedside. He holds his pale, cold hand and talks to him for hours; he tells him everything they could have had together, everything he’s always wanted. He tells him stories of his time in Afghanistan, and how the nightmares stopped when he moved to 221B.

“It’s funny,” he says, “it’s like you have an….an energy, that just made me…made me whole again. And now”- here he laughs, a little hysterically, and wipes away a tear- “and now here you go, leaving me and making me broken all over again. That is just like you, Sherlock Holmes; just like you.” 

He cannot go on anymore; he breaks down in sobs and then just sits, hunched over Sherlock’s still form, until Aislin enters just as the sun is beginning to rise.   
“Are you ready?” she asks softly, rubbing his back. John chokes back a sob and nods a yes, mutely letting go of Sherlock’s hand and moving to the life-support unit. “Do you want me to leave?” Aislin asks. John hesitates, and then nods again; this is something he must do alone. She nods understandingly and then leaves, shutting the door quietly behind her. 

John takes a deep breath. _This is it,_ he thinks, and then starts to cry in earnest again. Deep sobs wrack his body and obscure his vision, til Sherlock’s still form is just a blur of black and white. He breathes again, trying to steady himself. John leans forward and softly, gently, presses a kiss to Sherlock’s pale forehead, then another to those perfect full lips. He gazes down at the face of the man who could have been so much more than a best friend, a partner in crime, but now never will be. He fights back tears again and then bends down and whispers in his ear 

“I love you, Sherlock. I love you so much. 

Yours always-

Goodbye."

And he flips the switch that will end one life,

and leave a permanent emptiness in another. 

*** 


End file.
